Officials with the University of Nebraska are not happy about a student representing a conservative group being harassed by a professor, a grad student and several others on the Lincoln campus last Friday.

Kaitlyn Mullen is a sophomore and was signing up members for the conservative group, Turning Point USA. She had set up a table to promote the group and was met with protesters carrying signs calling the group Nazi’s and white nationalists. This got the attention of the Board of Regents who are investigating the incident.

Regent Hal Daub believes this was an organized protest of the group. He says, “For signs to be made and for the vulgar, ugly environment that was created was not accidental or instant. It took thought. It took planning. Those signs aren’t made in two minutes. This was intentional, disruptive and very rude and a frightening experience for Kaitlyn. So I am concerned, as are the regents, about student safety.”

Daub says they want the message sent to all the faculty and students that this kind of conduct, left or right, is not to be tolerated. He adds this isn’t a free speech issue but more of a conduct issue. Disciplinary action could be taken against the staff involved for violating a conduct clause that is included in their contracts.

Daub says, “These unprovoked kinds of actions are very negative and reflect poorly on our faculty, poorly on the university at large as well as the Lincoln Campus.”

Turning Point UNA is a national organization with about 1,000 chapters, including one at the University of Nebraska – Omaha.

For many Nebraska students, gone are the days of taking notes in class with paper and pencil. Even small rural schools are buying stacks of laptops.

A.J. Johnson, superintendent of the Hartington-Newcastle district, says students returning to school next week will have new Chromebooks waiting for them.

Johnson says, “We realized that our kids are living in a digital world and we have to meet them there and help them become better users and better consumers of information and of technology that’s out there.”

He says they decided to upgrade to a “one-to-one” program, where every student in middle and high school has his or her own electronic device. Johnson says the laptops will be an educational supplement.

“We’re not going to replace subjects with that,” he says. “It’ll be a new way to use information, a more modern way, a way that they’ll see in the real world rather than in the old school world.”

Johnson says teachers will be able to control how students use their new devices.

“Each teacher will be able to see what’s on the screens of the kids in their room and they’ll be able to tell if the kids are staying on task or not,” he says. “The 9th through 12th grade students will be able to take the Chromebooks home, the 7th and 8th grade students, for now, will keep them at school.”

Johnson says the filtering software on the laptops will also work when students use them at home or anywhere else. School starts next Tuesday in the district.

Those heading to the solar eclipse in Nebraska on August 21st should plan on arriving a few days early and attend the 13th annual Nebraska Archaeological Society’s annual Nebraska Artifact Show on Saturday, August 19th in Seward. Spokesperson Dick Eckles says there will be 100 tables of prehistoric artifacts on display from seven great Plains states. A number of the artifact collections are recognized as being world class in quality and are rarely available for public viewing. This includes artifacts from the Shifting Sands Folsom site in Texas.

Eckles says, “There will be arrowheads actually shot from a bow and arrow. Dart points. The knives they used for butchering and skinning. They were made of either flint or chert. Depending on what state its from it makes a lot of difference on what the materials look like. The materials alone are very beautiful. The styles of the artifacts, many of them are pure artwork.”

There are guest speakers and even a flintknapper who will demonstrate how to form a piece of flint into a stone tool. Professional archaeologists from the Nebraska State Historical Society, the Nebraska Association of Professional Archaeologists and the Midwest Archaeological Center of the National Park Service will be available. It runs from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. at Harvest Hall on the Seward County Fairgrounds.

School administrators from across Nebraska gathered in Kearney last week to discuss a host of issues they’re all facing as school starts in a few weeks.

A.J. Johnson, superintendent of the Hartington-Newcastle district, attended the annual conference of the Nebraska Association of School Administrators. Johnson says several sessions dealt with rural schools and sharing resources.

“For rural schools to continue to progress forward, we don’t have the sheer personnel that the large schools do and if we’re going to continue to progress, we really have to share with each other and use each other as resources,” Johnson says. “By and large, a lot of schools around the state do that.”

Johnson says administrators were also updated on the state’s ever-evolving achievement standards.

“Once you get everything in place for one set of standards, they come out and they change the standards,” Johnson says. “You’re never quite there. In many ways, that’s a good thing. You’re always striving to get better. It just creates a lot of extra work.”

Johnson says they appreciate that standards are getting steeper, because that will eventually benefit the students.

University of Nebraska officials hope budget cuts will help the four-campus system cope with fewer dollars flowing from the state without demanding too much more from its students.

University of Nebraska system President Hank Bounds says the challenge is stark.

“We have a $49 million budget challenge to address over the course of the next biennium,” Bounds tells Nebraska Radio Network.

A reduction in state funding by the Unicameral combined with an increase in costs have created the $49 million budget shortfall, according to Bounds.

He and chancellors from the various NU campuses have announced changes designed to close the budget gap.

Bounds says virtually every employee will be impacted.

Special teams on each campus made various suggestions to the chancellors and Bounds; some adopted, others rejected, a few put on hold.

Bounds says the changes will create standardization among the campuses and drive out duplication. An example is IT. Five IT systems will be merged into one to serve all campuses. Administrative duties, once localized, will be standardized across the system.

Personnel will be reduced. As many as 100 positions will be eliminated, through attrition when possible.

Other savings will come from consolidating printing and copying, financial operations, and public relations and marketing.

Permanent savings to the budget should total $30 million.

Bounds says he hopes to hold the line on tuition hikes to the already approved 5.4% increase this year and the 3.2% increase next year.

“We’ll have to carefully manage to be able to keep it there,” Bounds says. “If we see additional cuts we may have to go back to the tuition well, but we are obviously going to do everything that we can to keep that from happening.”

Bounds says the university will work to protect affordability and academic integrity. Bounds points out that while the University of Nebraska system has fewer employees than it did in 2000, it has increased enrollment on its campuses and an increase in research.

While many college campuses across Nebraska are relatively quiet now, preparations are moving quickly for the start of classes next month.

Kevin Halle, admissions director at Wayne State College, says it’s not too late to send in an application for the fall semester.

“There’s still time to get that information in, the sooner, the better,” Halle says. “There’s still room available for the ’17-’18 year. We’d encourage students to reach out of they have questions or need assistance in completing that process.”

Halle says they have been working since early this year to bring more freshmen to the campus in Wayne.

“We are looking to really see more freshmen this year and perhaps see a bump in transfer students as well,” Halle says. “It’s been very positive all year long in terms of our overall recruitment efforts and applications in general have been really positive all year.”

He says Wayne State is in the second year of its expanded recruiting program.

“Actually, a year ago in July, we kicked off strategic enrollment planning which is really taking the institution in a direction that has us thinking creatively,” Halle says, “whether that’s to attract a non-traditional population or different populations in other areas.”

Halle says they are now extending their reach into neighboring states. Wayne State had about 36-hundred students enrolled last year.

There’s an increase this year of more than 12% in the number of Nebraska high school seniors who’ve completed the forms to determine if they qualify for federal financial aid.

Elizabeth Keest Sedrel is monitoring the data about FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

“There’s a definite uptick in the number of high school seniors who are filling out the FAFSA,” Keest Sedrel says. “This is really good news because for one thing, we know students who file that FAFSA are more likely to go to college.”

More than 14-thousand Nebraska high school seniors had completed the forms by June 30th. FAFSA determines if students qualify for Pell Grants, for example.

Nationally, there’s been a 9% rise in high school seniors completing the forms.

Keest Sedrel says, “We know that students who file a FAFSA are more likely to enroll in higher education, whether it’s community college or a four-year university.”

Students and their parents were able to start filling out FAFSA forms last October, to prepare for the academic year that starts this fall.

Many universities, colleges and community colleges require completion of a FAFSA for merit-based scholarships as well as financial help based on income.

An Allis Chalmers tractor used in Alaska by the nation’s last homesteader under the Homestead Act of 1862 has arrived at the Homestead National Monument west of Beatrice.

Its recovery from the homestead of Kenneth Deardorff was made possible by a donation from Dr. C.T. Frerichs of Beatrice and the Friends of the Homestead.

Dr. Frerichs wanted to acquire the tractor in the memory of his wife, Julia. She came to Beatrice from Georgia, sat on the seat of a similar tractor, and became Frerich’s wife.

Frerichs thanked Homestead National Monument of America superintendent Mark Engler, Friends of the Homestead president Diane Vicars and David Hendee, author of an Omaha World-Herald story regarding the tractor’s discovery and efforts to recover it.

Vicars says the tractor is significant for being part of a decades-long history of homesteading.

Before going on display at the monument’s Heritage Center, Engler says the 1945 Model-C will first go to the Lester Larsen Tractor and Power Museum, where University of Nebraska students will do conservation treatment work on the machine.

Engler said the goal is to maintain the appearance of the tractor as it was being used and to demonstrate the role of the tractor in homesteading.

Rob Ruskamp, of the Homestead National Monument, led the team that traveled to Alaska to recover the tractor and to prepare it to be helicoptered off the Deardorff’s homestead. It was placed on a barge and shipped to Anchorage, to Seattle, then was trucked to Nebraska.

Homestead officials anticipate the tractor will be returned to the National Monument in late fall to go on display inside the main entrance of the Heritage Center.

For several months horticulture students at Metropolitan Community College Fort Omaha Campus have been busy in their gardens. Program Coordinator Tyler Magnuson says the students have learned how to grow great produce but there was one part missing in their program. That changes today with the opening of their farmer’s market.

Magnuson says, “This is a new component to our horticulture and small market farming program that we offer. We had them growing vegetables, harvesting and learning about different techniques but haven’t really had the ability to add a marketing component so this will be a great way for students in the class to get some hands on with marketing and what it would be like to sell at a larger farmers market or run their own small farm business.”

For sale today – tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, kale, collards, peppers and various herbs. Magnuson says their horticulture facilities on the Fort Omaha Campus include a large outdoor garden space, several hoop-houses and a greenhouse. This also gives them the chance to showcase their facility and hopefully get more people interested in horticulture.

The farmers market runs from 4 until 6 at the Culinary Arts Institute building near 32nd and Sorensen Parkway. The market will run through August 8th.

A spokesman for the University of Nebraska doesn’t believe the travel ban will have much impact on the university.

Steve Smith says the United States Supreme Court ruling on President Trump’s ban of travel from mostly Muslim countries provides clarification.

“The court’s action gives specific guidance regarding students admitted to universities and so in the very language of that ruling, our student’s relationship with the university clearly are, and I quote, ‘formal documented’ and formed in what they call ‘the ordinary course.’ In other words, they’re doing it in good faith and not to try to get around the wording of the ban,” Smith tells Nebraska Radio Network affiliate KLIN.

The Supreme Court ruled people should be allowed to come to the United States, as long as they have what the court called “a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”

Smith says it’s business as usual on the Lincoln campus.

“So, we’re pretty confident that our students and scholarly community will not be affected by this order,” Smith says.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a legal challenge of the travel ban later this year. For now, the court has allowed the ban to go into effect.